Fool Me Once: Privateer Tales, Book 2

Celina has no friends on Mars and to make things worse, Boyarov is skating on thin ice with the Red Houzi. He lost their ship and prisoner. Retrieving both as quickly as possible is the only hope he has of preserving his own life. He's on the hunt. If there is to be any help for Celina and Jenny, it will have to come from strangers. Puskar Stellar is a big city and finding someone who is trustworthy can be a slippery quest. Fool Me Once, a standalone novella, is the second story in Jamie McFarlane's Privateer Tales

The Dinosaur Hunter: A Novel

Life on the ranchlands of Montana comes with more than its share of trouble. The unique people who live and work on this untamed stretch of today's American West expect it---and some of them even enjoy it. One of them is Mike Wire, a former homicide detective who once worked the decadent hills and valleys of Hollywood.

The Never Hero: The Chronicles of Jonathan Tibbs, Book 1

Reclusive college student Jonathan Tibbs wakes in a pool of blood, not a scratch on him. His life is about to undergo a massive shift. A violent and merciless otherworldly enemy unleashes slaughter in the streets, calling out in a language only he understands. And it is seeking its challenger. In order to defeat the threat, Jonathan must become a temporal weapon...while remaining completely anonymous. Unfortunately, harnessing off-world powers has its own special challenges...

Rocket Boys: The Coalwood Series, Book 1

The New York Times best-selling memoir that inspired the film October Sky, Rocket Boys is a uniquely American memoir - a powerful, luminous story of coming of age at the dawn of the 1960s, of a mother's love and a father's fears, of a group of young men who dreamed of launching rockets into outer space... and who made those dreams come true. Nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award, Homer Hickam's lush, lyrical memoir is a marvelously entertaining chronicle of triumph.

The 39 Steps

When Richard Hannay returns to London after an action-packed life in Rhodesia, he finds life unbearably dull. He is on the point of leaving the city in search of adventures, when mystery and intrigue turns up at his door in the shape of Franklin Scudder, Hannay’s neighbour, who turns out to be a spy trying to escape the clutches of a shady international organisation, bent on sparking a European war. When Scudder is mysteriously murdered and all the evidence seems to point to Hannay himself, he escapes to Scotland, bearing Scudder’s cryptic coded notebook, which he struggles to decipher.

A Learning Experience, Book 1

When a bunch of interstellar scavengers approach Earth intending to abduct a few dozen humans and sell them into slavery in the darkest, they make the mistake of picking on Steve Stuart and his friends, ex-military veterans all. Unprepared for humans who can actually fight, unaware of the true capabilities of their stolen starships, the scavengers rapidly lose control of the ship - and their lives.

Rookie Privateer: Privateer Tales, Book 1

When you are old enough to finally become an Earth Mars citizen, everything should be perfect. Right? Not for Liam Hoffen. He's stuck on a mining asteroid called Colony 40, helping his father work a claim that is never going to pay out. His best friend, Nick James is set for life in James' Rental business and Liam just discovered that the girl he's known forever thinks he's pretty great and now she's leaving for the Mars Naval Academy.

The Keeper's Son

On the outer banks of the Carolinas in 1941, fishermen and a few lonely sailors constitute the human population. Dominating the rough yet beautiful landscape is the majestic Killakeet Lighthouse, run for generations by the Thurlow family. But Josh Thurlow, the lighthouse keeper's son, has forsworn his heritage to become the commander of a small Coast Guard patrol boat. Tortured by twenty years of guilt for losing his brother at sea, Josh still searches for him.

The Ambassador's Son

It's 1943 and the Americans and Japanese are fighting a deadly war in the hot, jungle-covered volcanic islands of the South Pacific. The outcome is in doubt and a terrible blow has fallen on American morale. Lieutenant David Armistead, a Marine Corps hero and cousin of the President of the United States, is missing and some say he's gone over to the enemy. Coast Guard Captain Josh Thurlow and his ragtag crew are given the assignment to find Armistead, though not necessarily to bring him back alive.

Terms of Enlistment: Frontlines, Book 1

The year is 2108, and the North American Commonwealth is bursting at the seams. For welfare rats like Andrew Grayson, there are only two ways out of the crime-ridden and filthy welfare tenements, where you’re restricted to 2,000 calories of badly flavored soy every day. You can hope to win the lottery and draw a ticket on a colony ship settling off-world, or you can join the service. With the colony lottery a pipe dream, Andrew chooses to enlist in the armed forces for a shot at real food, a retirement bonus, and maybe a ticket off Earth.

Starfire

On June 30, 1908, an object fell from the sky, releasing more energy than a thousand Hiroshima bombs. A Siberian forest was flattened, but the strike left no significant crater. The anomaly came to be known as the Tunguska Event, and scientists have never agreed whether it was the largest meteor strike in recorded history - or something else. Alien artifacts have been uncovered since the 1908 event, and a new star drive is discovered.

Fear the Sky: The Fear Saga, Book 1

From the Audie-nominated narrator of The Martian. In eleven years' time, a million members of an alien race will arrive at Earth. Years before they enter orbit, their approach will be announced by the flare of a thousand flames in the sky, their ships' huge engines burning hard to slow them from the vast speeds needed to cross interstellar space. These foreboding lights will shine in our night sky like new stars, getting ever brighter until they outshine even the sun, casting ominous shadows and banishing the night until they suddenly blink out.

Publisher's Summary

A mining colony on the moon. A teen sent on a deadly mission. And a secret bigger than two worlds. It’s the 22nd Century. A tough, pioneering people mine the moon for Helium-3 to produce energy for a desperate, war-torn Earth. Sixteen-year old Crater Trueblood loves his job as a Helium-3 miner. But when he saves a fellow miner, his life changes forever. Impressed by his heroism, the owner of the mine orders Crater to undertake a dangerous mission. Crater doubts himself, but has no choice. He must go. With the help of Maria, the mine owner’s frustrating but gorgeous granddaughter, and his gillie - a sentient and sometimes insubordinate clump of slime mold cells - Crater must fight both human and subhuman enemies. He’ll battle his way across a thousand miles of deadly lunar terrain and face genetically altered super warriors in his quest to recover an astonishing object that will alter the lives of everyone on the moon.

I purchased Crater expecting a fun space adventure and a step away from the norm for me. It may have been a change of pace for me but it was boring. I had to push myself through this book and contemplated giving up several times. I don’t even know where to begin. It lacked direction, good characters, and life in general. On top of that, the moon was a dismal setting and the author provided zero description to make it an intriguing place. I think this book might have been meant for younger children as the story was childish and at times cheesy. However, I don’t see how middle school aged kid would even have the attention span to read this book.

The moon also holds a valuable resource, Helium 3, and as a result Earth colonies and mining centers have been established to tap into this profitable resource. Crater Trueblood is an orphan boy who works on one of the moon mines and for the most part is content with his life. Keeping him company is an intelligent slime mold creature (Gillie), the only thing his parents left him, and a friend named Petro, who often times isn’t a very good friend to Crater. Crater gets called to the office of the Commander and is sent on a mission to protect some precious cargo on a caravan across the moon. Little does Crater know that the Commander picked him specifically for the mission because he wanted someone naive. Crater gets thrown into a lot of dangerous situations but with the help of the Gillie and his charm he manages to find a way through them all.

Let’s start with Crater. He is honest and nice but naive. He’s so naive that everyone around him gets frustrated by his innocence. He’s clearly the hero from the beginning because he’s always out to help others and work as hard as he can. He also likes to work hard even if people are taking advantage of him and is content to and gives everyone the benefit of the doubt, even when they are holding him at gunpoint. For me Crater was so likeable, he was hard to like. Too good. Too nice. Too innocent. My eyes rolled every time he opened his mouth. I like main characters that have a few flaws and a little bit of an edge. He grew a little bit of spine at the end of the book but I was so tired of him by that point that I just wasn’t impressed.

Next let’s talk about the story. I think the author was going for a space western as he threw in a lot of cowboy and western themes. There was a town sheriff, a space horse, guns, bandits, natives, and more. The space cowboy theme has been done a lot and it felt a little cliche. My least favorite thing about the story was the lack of direction. I really had no idea why anything was happening. I thought things would come together in the end but it just left me wondering what was the point of the rest of the book. For example, Crater is assigned to protect a package. A lot of people are trying to get their hands on this package and on previous missions people have died in protection of it. You don’t find out what the package is until the end, which is fine, but the package ends up being nothing special. A lot of hype for nothing and I just didn’t get the point.

Overall, this book didn’t excite me at all. I gave it a chance again and again but it failed to keep me interested. I also listened to the audiobook, which I don’t recommend. The way the narrator performed the characters’ voices was irritating. If you want to read this book, definitely get the book over the audiobook. Keep in mind some people have given Crater some good reviews so you should take those into consideration if you are thinking about reading this book. As for me, I won’t be reading the next books in this series.